#rtd just never did that because it wasn't the intention

[metacrisisdoctor]

there are multiple reasons that i think the popular fanon interpretation of tenrose where they were having sex in season two doesn't make any sense and is objectively wrong but really when i entertain the idea that they were having an explicitly sexual romantic relationship the way people think they were (and yet we never saw them kiss, never saw them even LEAN IN TO KISS) i get very frustrated because that's a completely different relationship than what we saw on screen and it doesn't make me feel validated at all.

their relationship is deep and romantic and valuable without the kissing, because it's walking this thin line, where we know they want to be together fully and are almost there, but haven't quite fully realized it, especially toward the end of season two.

but if they were kissing and having sex and it was meant to be some sort of secret from the audience? i find that insulting and half assed writing, which it's not. tenrose is a story about a love so deep you are afraid to approach it because it will take you down. it's about wanting everything and taking nothing because you're afraid of losing it again and how your own repression hurts you in the end because you lost anyway. that's why we never see them kiss in season two, not because rtd is a prude or because that was all off screen.

doomsday is so painful because toward the end of season two the doctor is embracing his feelings for rose. he was starting to open up to her- and then it was all snatched away before they could do all of the things they wanted to because those things weren't in the cards for them yet.

[picnokinesis]

if you would be interested in sharing your thoughts about the star beast, i would love to hear them!!

Ooh okay, so - well, first, just to start off: I think The Star Beast is a really important episode, and was very much a needed episode. The current climate in the UK regarding the trans community and their rights is getting extremely rancid, to put it lightly. Having an episode of Doctor Who with an explicitly trans character, having the other characters around her be affirming and supportive - that was awesome. Extremely awesome. And I'm really glad that RTD is loudly putting himself on this side of the whole 'debate' (which isn't really a debate, because it's just straight up bigotry from the anti-trans side, and we need people like RTD outwardly speaking out against that bigotry).

When I talk to cis people offline about this episode, that is pretty much what I say and also where I stop.

I'll put the rest under the cut hahah - there's a bit of negativity here, just as a warning for all the hardcore RTD stans, but I think it's well-founded and not vitriolic at all, just like, miffed hahaha. Also, I know there were a few trans folks who found this episode really affirming, so just to be clear: this is just my opinion, personal thoughts, and also influenced by the conversations I had with other trans people that I know and care about about the episode.

When I talk to trans people - offline or online - about this episode, I go in a lot deeper, because whilst it was a very important episode, it was somewhat flawed. It also came off the back of several things RTD had said and done that really ticked me off, and so I wasn't really in the interest of being entirely uncritical about what, to me and a lot of trans dw fans that I spoke to, thought was a very "cis" trans story. And when I watched it, I thought 'oh geez, is this how poc feel when white people try and write poc stories with good intentions but don't really get it right??" because like. Ho boy.

The thing about this episode was that RTD wanted to write an affirming trans story, and mostly did that, but also, imo...doesn't actually understand what gender and transness actually is. I think my main gripes were definitely with the climax scene - the whole 'we can let go bc we're women' thing literally made me go 'what' out loud at the screen because...well, it's just gender essentialism. Trans inclusive, sure! But trans inclusive gender essentialism is still gender essentialism. Women aren't better than men. There's actually an exceptionally good essay written by a trans woman who was still in the closet about her experiences in queer spaces that had a very prevalent anti-men attitude, and I've seen it myself irl too. It's not helpful - it's harmful, in fact - and it leans on this strange mysticism about women that is fundamentally anti-feminist, in my opinion. Women aren't "innately better at emotional and intangible, instinctive things" (and it's unspoken counterpart - "thus men are better at logical, rational things" - is also untrue). Women aren't magically better at 'letting things go' than men are - I reckon you could make an argument about men being socialised to not be emotional, and that would be an interesting conversation to have, but that was not what was being said - especially with the Doctor being raised in a society that didn't even perceive gender in the same was as humanity.

Also, the thing that REALLY got me was 'if you were a woman, you'd get it' - first of all, no. Thirteen never let anything go in her life and repressed to the max, if anything she was WORSE than tenteen at that lmao. Second - and this is the more salient point - I think it's a strange thing to suggest that tenteen is fully a man, at this point? Like, regardless of what he looks like, regardless of how he identifies or how thirteen identified, he just lived a lifetime in a body that looked like a woman, and thus was treated as such by the rest of the universe. He wasn't going to forget all of that. I actually really liked how the Chibnall era approached thirteen's gender - or, rather, her complete ambivalence to it, where it seemed like gender was more of an annoying thing that kept happening to the doctor that she kept having to remember, rather than something she felt - however I really REALLY wish they'd actually dug explicitly into the transness of it all, and so when they didn't, I'd hoped that RTD would do that instead. Especially since we KNEW Yasmin Finney was in it and we knew we were going to get a trans character!! I was like, this is the PERFECT opportunity to get the Doctor to actually talk about their gender and how it, fundamentally, doesn't really change between bodies, just how people REACT to it changes. But instead, the episode seems to present the doctor as having flicked a binary switch - once woman, now man - and thus made sure to remind us that every time thirteen was mentioned, it was framed around the fact that she was The Woman Regeneration, but also that tenteen was Now a Man Again. And even if that WAS THE CASE, it still wouldn't mean that tenteen came out of that experience completely mindwiped of everything about 'womanhood', right?? Like he lived as a woman! He was a woman 45 minutes ago, but now you're telling him that he couldn't possibly understand anything about this because he's a man now? Like first of all, his physical body's characteristics have nowt to do with his ability to let things go, second, it's just....okay, it reminds me of the dichotomy between all these detransition horror stories the anti-trans folks like to spew out, versus when you talk to actual detransitioners, who are quite often gnc and extremely positive about the trans community, and whose experience within that community and transitioning impacted how they view the world.

And I think it fundamentally comes down to RTD not really understanding either womanhood or transness. He actively speaks out on both of these things, which is great, but I don't think he understands them fully. I think the fact that he didn't think that David Tennant could wear a t-shirt, braces, trousers and coat because they were "women's clothes", and that when he cast David Tennant that was one of the first things he immediately decided is kind of telling.

There's also the whole 'male-presenting timelord' thing, which, again, I just don't think RTD really understood what that meant, like I'm not sure what his point was there, genuinely. Like, on a technical level it's acknowledging that the Doctor isn't necessarily male, just looks like a man (correct) buuuuuuuuuut the full line was saying 'you'd never understand this because you're a man' SO LIKE...okay? So he's not actually a man, but actually because of his male-adjacency, he's incapable of coming to the same conclusion that a woman did? So he's still...defined by his maleness? Hm. Strange sentence to write coming out of a trans woman's mouth.

What would have been better? I wish they'd just had Donna and Rose say 'because we're human', or maybe 'because we're the Nobles'. I also know a lot of people really didn't like the misgendering scene with the kids on the bikes - I think my personal feelings on that are a little more complicated, as a trans person who is not out irl and functionally uses my birthname almost everywhere, but also isn't triggered by it. It's not a deadname, more like a paperwork name rather than my preferred name, right? But I know for a lot of trans people, deadnaming is like psychological warfare and it's really awful, especially when done with malicious intent (like shown in the scene with the boys on the bikes). However...I do understand why RTD included this scene, and actually kind of agree with him. Because the boys on the bikes are the sort of people who are also watching the show. And so then seeing that kind of thing being condemned by the narrative by a key, beloved character, is probably something that's actually helpful. On the other hand though...in the Doctor Who Unleashed (or whatever the behind the scenes thing is called now), you've got this interview with Yasmin Finney saying that it was actually a pretty triggering scene to film for her and genuinely affected her, and I'm like....okaaaaaay then I REALLY hope they had someone she could talk to on set. Like, fundamentally, I think telling these stories are important, but, yknow, not at the expense of the actual actress' mental wellbeing, right? So that concerned me a bit.

I also think that the scene between Sylvia and Donna in the kitchen talking about Rose was brilliant. And this is because it was about cis people trying to understand and support trans people whilst not completely getting it and making mistakes, but also trying their best!! Which RTD does understand, very well!! And it felt so real. It was fantastic. There's also the part with the whole 'did you assume the meep's pronouns' whiiiiiiiich I have mixed feelings about? I think here, RTD was trying to poke fun at the people who do say that sort of thing to make fun of trans people, and having the Doctor be like 'actually this is a good point we should be checking this sort of thing'......however. I don't think I've ever heard 'did you assume my pronouns' come out of a trans person's mouth. It's always been a cis person mocking our community. So it felt a bit...incongruent. And all that needed to be changed was having Rose say 'how do you know the meep is a he?' - like that was all it needed!!! Also, it was a shame that after the delightful moment of the doctor being like 'SAME HAT' regarding the meep's pronouns, that.....we then had NO OTHER DISCUSSION about the doctor's gender!! Like, Russel, dude, you're really gonna have Rose hear the 'male-presenting' guy say 'oh yeah I do that with pronouns too!! :D' - have her NOT REACT TO THAT AT ALL - and then you're gonna have her say by the end 'oh you don't understand bc you're a man :)' after her non-binary power move moment? Sighs. Yeah.

I think another important thing to remember here is that there were no trans folks in the writer's room on this. Now, this is a tricky one because I think people who aren't part of a certain community should be writing stories outside their own knowledge and experience, and should be encouraged to do so!! I don't think that you need to have everything rubberstamped, and even something written by someone in a certain community isn't going to resonate with everyone in that community. Actually, I think it's unhelpful to start getting into the politics of 'who is allowed to write what' - I think anything written with care and good intention is valuable, especially if the writer is willing to listen to constructive criticism and learn from any mistakes that are made. But I think, as a writer myself, if you are going to write a story about that community, it might be worth 1) talking to them a bit more than I think RTD did - but, to be fair, I don't actually know how much research he did, but, well, see above on the fact I don't think he really got what he was writing about - but also 2) not dismissing writers from that community (and others!), which RTD did in an interview not thaaaaaaat long before the episode aired. Again, to be fair to him, he has since then been like 'oh, we need to mentor and encourage the new generation of trans writers and writers of colour', which, great! But also, sir, then why were you saying that all the scripts you got from minority writers were all awful, angry, and lacked any love for tv like skksks SIR. SIR. The thing that gets me about that comment in particular is that, as someone currently starting out in script writing, I know exactly how hard it is to get at all noticed. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of passion, a lot of hard work and a lot of skill - and a lot of luck too, granted, but not luck along. So, RTD, if these writers got their scripts to your literal desk, as showrunner of Doctor Who...I think they have some love and passion. They HAVE to, to get to the point where he is reading those scripts. Also maybe RTD should unpack the fact that he thought the scripts were bad because they were too angry - I mean, I haven't read them, so I don't know, but maybe, sir, feeling uncomfortable about the anger in a script isn't a bad thing. Not every story is meant to be an easy pill to swallow. There are aromantic stories I want to write about romance as horror, romance as a virus, romance as a destructive force, that I think a lot of alloromantic people will find uncomfortable. Does that mean they're bad? Maybe, lol. Mostly they're bad because they're not written yet lmao, but I don't think the anger and discomfort in them makes them inherently weak. In fact, I think often anger can make a story stronger.

So then, I think The Star Beast left a sour taste in the back of my mouth, despite all the positive aspects of it, because of that. I think that comment also kinda left me frustrated about Dot and Bubble, even though I think that was a fantastic episode and genuinely really well done, and very effective - and I'm genuinely loathe to criticise it at all because I think it was so important - but. Having RTD talking in an interview about wondering how long the audience will take to notice that the cast is all white (and, thus, the depicted society is racist) whilst sitting in a writers room that's all white iiiiiiiiiiis uh. I don't think he thought about that SKKS. I think a lot about Sacha Dhawan talking about how you can be as inclusive on screen as you like, but if it's all 'white behind the lights' then how much does that inclusivity actually mean?

RTD definitely had good intentions and wrote a mostly good story. But he definitely fell down in some regards, aaaaaand well. I don't know. My personal opinion is that he's kind of arrogant and thinks he's infallible as a writer (and I may feel this way bc of the way parts of the fandom seem to put him on a pedestal, if I'm honest) - but I think that he's just human. He doesn't get things perfectly right all the time, and that's absolutely fine, but I think it's interesting and important to discuss those pitfalls, and I just wish he'd stop making it feel like he thinks he can write trans stories better than, yknow, actual trans people, and then write the most cis trans story I've ever seen SKSKSKSK

(AND ACTUALLY - sorry, this is getting long, but it's kind of indicative of the whole industry at the moment? The industry is calling for more diverse voices, more diverse stories - but they also want stories that can appeal to the widest possible audience, the common denominator, and thus "trans stories by trans people for trans people" doesn't actually tick that box. This didn't hit me until I wrote a trans horror script that got shortlisted for a script call, but when I spoke to the (cis) producer and director (who were LOVELY, the producer had a gorgeous dog called Biscuit HAHA) I very quickly realised that they did not get it. They didn't understand. "Why do we have to kill the mirror demon that's the girl part of this trans man?" they asked. "She should get to live too!" But: "She was never a part of him," I had to say. "She was the idea of him that everyone around him thought he was, and thought it so strongly that she became real. It was her or him." They didn't really understand, but on the plus side it did highlight to me what was unclear in my script that none of my (trans) proof readers had picked up on (although my transfemme friend made the HILARIOUS comment that maybe the mirror demon could go and find a nice trans girl to possess? WHICH SKSKSKSKKSKSK I MEAN -))

Anyway. -gestures nebulously- I feel like my thoughts were a lot more concise and well constructed in the week after this episode actually aired hahaha, but I didn't want to throw my hat into the ring back then. I did find it amused how the majority of my cis trans-affirming friends were like 'GREAT EPISODE, RIGHT?!!' and the majority of my trans friends were sending me the grimace emoji in the week after the episode aired LMAO

[casasupernovas]

I wish RTD had leaned further in to 10/Rose being insufferably toxic. It was clearly his intention going by Tooth and Claw and Love and Monsters and Doomsday. He just couldn’t quite commit to villainising 10 and then it was a real shame that he went back on their original cathartic ending in S4. But then I guess if he hadn’t reversed course into painting them as True Love’s Dream rather than a codependent mess that ruins everyone’s lives, Moffat wouldn’t have taken the original concept and run with it to create the explicitly nightmarish 12/Clara. And 12/Clara is so fun for being so terrible.

I do like the 12/Clara but I'm sure he could have come up with that on his own.

It's also weird because Russell only truly villainses 10 for all of....10 seconds at the end of The Waters of Mars but even that isn't as deep because I don't think 10's reasoning is properly defined. He's not a villain for wanting to save people from grisly deaths but he IS for doing is solely because thinks he's allowed to control people's lives. He calls them little people at the end. It's not because he cares anymore. There's the villainy. But by the next episode it's over and any more moral ambigouity doesn't stay too long.

I personally think Russell didn't know how to make 10 address these things and still be likeable. Better to have him act out but remind the audience it's valid because of Tulip. It would have even been more interesting if he confessed to Jack in Utopia that he let Jack down. If he was gonna go abandon him at least have something to show for it. But they both became arrogant berks - I mean hello they Rose stopped the Time War because she loved the Doctor. That would boost anyone's ego about 1 million. It gave his new face arrogance and a smugness and it cost him his entire found family. He waltzed off with Rose and bloody lost her! And it was their fault! How tf wasn't he ashamed?! He should have felt nothing but shame seeing Jack, fixed point be damned.

Because the Doomsday is way more positive for Rose even if it didn't seem like it to her on the day of it all. We could have had a Doctor with his tail between his legs, Martha would have been a brilliant segway into that...which you can argue was the original intention considering Martha was supposed to be Adeola. Have Adeola be like hey, my memory of you was you being the 'enemy' but actually ending up as the only one who made sense and tried to save people. Be that hero I remember.

But star crossed lovers who never did anything wrong actually and continue to bulldoze through other people to get half a happy ending...sure.

[tea-earl-grey]

okok. i've collected some of my Star Beast thoughts. i'll put in a cut because spoilers

i had so much fun but it's still a bit of a mixed bag for me.

i loved seeing David Tennant and Catherine Tate back. say what you will about nostalgia baiting but like. they're great together and will always lift up an episode. i loved how unabashedly earnest it was. i love having Shirley keep a rocket launcher in her wheelchair. i love how much Rose being transgender is brought up and informs her character (especially in the era where a canon trans character usually means there's like a throwaway line and then is never brought up again). i loooooooved Beep the Meep and the combination of practical and digital effects (the episode in general just looked very nice). i think all of the characters were really thought through, especially Donna and Sylvia (and their relationship). Donna didn't have a supportive mum growing up so she is really trying to be there for Rose even when she doesn't know how. Sylvia took the Doctor's advice to heart at the end of Journey's End and is actively trying to show Donna that she cares and loves her (and loves Rose for that matter). i did think the plot itself was surprisingly well managed? which i was very much expecting a Power of the Doctor style "who fucking knows what the plot is, we're having fun" thing but it is structured and linear and well paced.

in terms of the things i wasn't super pleased about... i love the trans and disabled rep and it was clearly done with good intentions and i didn't think there were any parts that were offensive or muddled but it was very clear that a cis man wrote it. saving the world through the power of transgenderism is fucking great and baller in the current climate but it was just a bit too pristine with the continued assumption that the Fourteenth Doctor is a man because he's played by a cis man and Thirteen was a woman because she was played by a cis woman rather than having a bit more fun with messing around with gender.

i also think Donna getting her memories back was just a bit underplayed... i love the tragedy in Journey's End and i am fine giving Donna back her memories but i wish we saw a bit more anger with how the Doctor violated her own wishes to save her life and i wish there would have been some sort of trade-off to Donna remembering to still maintain the tragedy (and there might be! this is only episode one!)

finally... i went into this episode kind of expecting it would be a lot of RTD era stuff and that it wouldn't be a huge story. they've practically said in interviews that part 1 will be an ordinary story and then parts 2 and 3 will get fun and funky but i am still a bit disappointed that this is part of the anniversary special. which is an excuse to get cringe and nostalgic and fan-servicey and they didn't really do that. and there wasn't even much of a plot twist since if you know the comics, you know Beep the Meep is evil and Rose being part of the metacrisis was a pretty popular fan theory.

anyways. that's about all of my thoughts. i had a lot of fun, i think it's a solid episode, and the things i didn't like can probably be fixed in the next two episodes. all in all 8/10

[rawwkfingers]

Planet of the Daleks

While it's weird to have a story titled this not actually be set on Skaro, I thought it was quite good! The quality in the writing of this show just has gotten so much better than it was in the First or Second Doctor's eras

The opening was... odd and had me believing we were going to be getting the first Doctor-lite story in the series. I was all on board for Jo to take charge and help save the Doctor using medicine from Skaro all on her own power

Aaaaand then he was just better before the first episode even ended, with no explanation as to how or why

Despite that though, I do think this was another one of Jo's stronger stories! While it wasn't Doctor-lite, she did take a much more active role in the story (which is just a trend this season that I'm loving.) The whole random romance thing was unnecessary, but other than that she did great

I hope this is the last we ever see of the Thals because they are by far the weakest part of the Dalek mythos, which I'm largely a huge fan of. Especially knowing what we know now, that Skaro is essentially Dalek homebase, it really just doesn't work that there's a group of pacifist aliens who also are the dominant lifeform there

The science was nonsense, but that's always been a part of being a Doctor Who fan tbh. You really do just have to be able to say "okay so ice-lava exists now" and move on. The politics were also a bit all over the place unfortunately

Now, Doctor Who doesn't *have* to be political. In fact I'd say a lot of the black-and-white serials are largely apolitical, as are a majority of the modern stories, and to my knowledge the politics get toned down once Pertwee leaves. But this show IS science fiction, a genre practically tailor-made to approach politics through the lens of storytelling to help tell a point, and Doctor Who has never shied from that; especially not Pertwee's era

So when we had a story that came out in the early 70s, set on a jungle planet with hostile plant life and a climate our characters aren't used to, with a plot about guerrilla warfare and a native alien race who could turn invisible, I think it's fair for me to expect that this story has a lot to say about Vietnam. And, knowing how the show has treated imperialism and the like in the past, I think it was fair for me to assume this serial was going to be about how intervening in Vietnam is morally abhorent

Instead, the only time the serial brought its politics to the forefront was at the very end with the Doctor's anti-war speech (which, giving credit where it's due, was excellent.) Everywhere else, the story was actually about how the Daleks (analogous for the Soviet Union) are evil, the Spirodons (Vietnamese) are nothing more than subservient tools being used by the Daleks, and the Thals (the US) have a moral obligation to do whatever it takes to defeat the Dalek menace, even killing Spirodons in the process

So yea, while I enjoyed the story on face value, its politics were kinda garbage tbh. Looking at it from the perspective of the show's larger mythos though, I think it did a great job showing just how dangerous and omnipresent the Daleks are. While this wasn't the writer's intention, you can definitely see the seeds for the Time War plot that RTD would bring